Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-07-23

Of the lad in ten days time. This done, |
proceeded to the authorities OF my college,
and having told them as much of the story
as | considered desirable, which was not
very much, after considerable difficulty
succeeded in persuading them to stretch a
point, and, in the event Of my having OBJ
tanned a Fellowship, which | was pretty
certain | had done, allow me to have the
chila TO live with me. Their consent, how
ever, was only granted on the condition
that | vacated my rooms in college and
took lodgings. This | did, and with some
difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good
apartments quite close TO the college gates.
The next thing was to find q nurse. And
on this point | came to a determination. |
would have no woman TO lord it over me
and about the child, and steal his affections
from me. The boy was old enough to do
without female assistance, so | set TO work
To hunt up IA suitable male attendant.
With some difficulty | succeeded in obtain.
In@ u most respectable nd faced young
man, who had been a helper in q hunting
Stable, but who said that he was one of a
family Of seventeen and well accustomed
to the ways OF children. and professed him
self quite willing to undertake the charge
of Master Leo when he arrived. Then,
having taken the iron box to town, and
with my own hands deposited it at my
bankers, | bought some books upon the
health and management Of children and
read them, first to myself, and then aloud
to Job-that was the young mans name
and waited.
In a very little while (for, as l expected,
got my Fellowship the boy became the
f~ayorite Of the whole co~llege-where, all
orders and regulations to the contrary not
withstanding, he was continually in and
out-a sort of chartered lbertine, in whose
favor all rules were relaxed. The offerings
made at his shrine w.re simply without
number, and / had n serious difference of
opinion with one old resident fellow, now
long dead, who was usually supposed to
be the crustiest mar in the university, and
TO abhor the sight OF Il child. And yet |
discovered, when a frequently recurring fit
OF sickness had forced Job TO keep a strict
lookout, that this unprincipled old man
was in the habit Of enticing the boy to his
rooms and there feeding him upon unlim-
tied quantities of brandy balls, and max
ing him promise to say nothing about it.
job told him he had ought to be ashamed
"a AAAiI|NAi cb llS O2t, ~ WIGl It IllDUl
have been n grandfather if he had done
what was right by which Job under
stood had got married, and thence arose
the row.
Tho child grew into the boy, and the boy
into a young man, as enc by one the re-
morseless years flew by, and a. he grew
and increased, SO did his beauty and the
beauty of his mind grow with him. When
hn yvoc "a hn,,t n e. an, tIa. ,,.ul 4. -
Beauty about the college, and me they
nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the
Beast was what they called us when we
went out walking together, as we used to
every day. Once Leo attacked a great
strapping butcher's-man, twice his size,
because he sung it out after us, and
thrashed him, too-thrashed him fairly. /
walked on and pretended not to see, till
the combat got too exciting, when turned
round and cheered him on to victory. 1t
was the chafr of the college at the time,
but | could not help it. Then when he
was a little older the undergraduates got
fresh names for us. They called me Char
on, and Leo the Greek god. | will pass
over my W appellation with the humble
remark that was never handsome, and
did not grow more SO as | grew older. As
for his, there was no doubt about his fit
ness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood
for a statue of Apollo. / never saw any
body to touch him in looks, or anybody SO
absolutely unconscious of them. AS for
his mind, he was brilliant and keen witted,
but not a scholar. He had not the dullness
necessary for that result. We followed
out his fathers instructions as regards his
education strictly enough, and on the
whole the results, especially SO far as the
Greek and Arabic went, were satisfactory.
l learned the latter language in order to
help to teach ii to him, but after five years
of il he knew it rs well as | { id-almost as
well as the professor who instructed us
both. / always was a great sportsman
it is my one pasSion-and every autumn
we went away somewhere shooting or fish
ing, sometimes TO Scotland, sometimes to
Norway, once even to Russia. l am a good
shot, but even in this he learned to excel
me. When Leo was eighteen / moved
back into my rooms, and entered him at
my own college, and at twenty-one he took
his degree-a respectable degree, but not q
very high one. Then it was hat /, for the
first time, told him something of his own
story, and Of the mystery that loomed
ahead. OF course he was very curious
about it, and of course / explained to him
that his curiosity could not be g~ratified at
present. After that, to pass the time away,
l suggested that hO should get himself
called to the bar; and this he did, reading
at Cambridge, and only going up to Lon
don TO eat his dinners.
| had only one trouble about him, and
that was that every young woman who
came across him, or, if not every one, near
ly SO, would insist on falling in 10y" with
him. Hence arose difficulties VIII need
not enter into here, though t. we're
troublesome enough al the time. ON the
whole, he behaved fairly well; | CANE say
more than that.
And so the time went by, till mt last he
reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which
date this strange, and in some ways awful,
history really begins.
CHAPTER 1.-THE suERD OF AMENARTAs.